


The Last Flying Fortress

by GloriaMundi



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, Future Fic, Gen, M/M, POV Outsider, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 01:13:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4587384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloriaMundi/pseuds/GloriaMundi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last flight of the last airworthy B17 (though Bobbie's more interested in what's happening on the ground).</p><p>Written for <a href="http://trope-bingo.dreamwidth.org/">Trope Bingo</a> round 5, trope = 'future fic'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Flying Fortress

It was a blisteringly hot day, and everyone was fractious, so when Bobbie snapped at little Jo their dad told her to take herself off and get a cold drink or something. "An' don't come back til you're in a better temper, miss."

Bobbie didn't say "that'll be never, then," though she thought it so loudly that any mutie in the crowd would've picked it up instantly. Instead, she sloped off towards the refreshment tents. It wasn't fair. Jo was always a pain in the butt and there was only so much of it Bobbie could take. And nobody told _Jo_ to calm down or stop doing ... whatever.

She didn't even want to come to the _goddamn_ airshow anyway. Sure, there were some sweet aerobatics -- like the Falcon flyers, and the Patriot squad -- and it was good to be out of the house. But who wanted to sit around watching old planes wobbling around the sky? Old fossils, that was who. Like the guys in front of her in the drinks queue.

The commentary in her StarkEar was burbling on about the next plane. "First commissioned in 1935, over a century ago ..." 

"How 'bout that?" said the dark-haired guy to his companion. "That thing's more than a hundred years old, Stevie. Older than dirt, eh? They sure built things to last back in the day."

Bobbie rolled her eyes. She got enough of 'back in the day' from her grandma. Though the dark-haired guy didn't look half as old as her grandma. Come to that, his friend Stevie was kind of hot: tall and blond, just starting to grey at the temples. "Some things last better than others," he said to his friend. 

Above them, there was a roar and whine of old engines. Bobbie didn't like to think of how much it must cost to run these old wrecks. All that gasoline! (Not that it was gonna be used for anything else, these days. Fossil fuel for fossils: ARC power for everyone else.) And it _stank_ , it really stank. She sneezed.

"Bless you," said the dark-haired guy, like it was a reflex. Bobbie stared at him. Only grandma said that kind of thing any more.

"James," said Stevie, "stop freaking the young lady out."

Bobbie spluttered: couldn't help it. 'Freaking out'? These two really were fossils. Maybe they'd had that new rejuvenation treatment? You had to be a millionaire to afford it, but everyone said it'd get cheaper in a few years. And maybe they _were_ millionaires, even if James was wearing gloves (gloves! in July!) and Stevie's baseball cap looked like it'd come out of the Smithsonian.

"... fifteen metric tons unladen, plus up to three tons of armaments ..." droned the commentator. 

James and Stevie bought beers. Bobbie got herself a Coke (charged it to her dad, since it was his fault she was here in the first place) and, out of sheer curiosity as much as a desire to stay away from her family, trailed after the two guys. 

"... those Falcon flyers were really somethin'," James was saying. "Never thought I'd see that many in one place."

The flyers with their mechanical wings -- StarkTech, Bobbie'd audited a webinar about the project last semester -- had been awesome. Bobbie'd been jealous of them up there in the cool air, looping and diving and perfectly controlled. And they did good work, rescues and crowd control and such.

"Yeah, Sam'd be proud," said Stevie.

Sam? Like, Sam _Wilson_? Bobbie perked up. Maybe if these two really _were_ prehistoric millionaires who'd had themselves zapped with alien blood to make them young again ... maybe they'd _known_ Sam Wilson, the first of the Falcons. He'd died before Bobbie was born, but ...

She wanted to charge up to them and demand details: but Stevie had come to a halt at the barrier, staring off into the distance (not even anywhere near the slow, lumbering silver plane) and looking sad, and James had his hand on his friend's shoulder. Maybe they were having a moment.

"... the last surviving 'Flying Fortress'," the commentator said, "and this is her last season in the air. It's become too expensive to run her, and the air frame ..."

"Hear that, Steve?" said James. "Not everything lasts forever."

"That a promise, Buck?" said Stevie. He sounded choked. Maybe the reek of gasoline was bothering him too.

"Hey, now, none of that," said James, wrapping his arms around his friend. 

"Don't --"

"Nobody cares about that shit no more," said James, hugging him tighter.

All around them people were staring up at the sky -- probably recording on implants, or maybe flipping through their messages, like Bobbie had done earlier -- but James and Stevie (Steve? Buck? That rang a bell) just stood there with their heads together. Yeah, they were having a moment all right, and Bobbie felt suddenly like she shouldn't be listening in. She tapped her earlobe to turn up the airshow commentary instead, squinting at where she thought the plane must be.

"... the advent of cyber-warfare and the decline of traditional military techniques, the B17 is no longer needed, but her legacy of years of service all over the globe ..."

James and Steve were coming back towards where Bobbie stood sipping her Coke. "... war's over, Steve. We earned our retirement," James was saying as they went past her.

"... and the last Flying Fortress soars off into the distance," said the commentator, sounding awed, "a relic of a bygone age."

Up in the sky, a pinprick of silver flashed bright against the clouds, and disappeared.

-end-

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by seeing the last airworthy Vulcan at Eastbourne Air Show -- I did not expect to be moved, but was. And by the time I got back to where we were sitting, this fic was in my head: my first spontaneously-generated fic for over a year. YAY!
> 
> Thanks to K for encouragement and beta :)


End file.
